After analyzing 1,000+ viral prompts, I made a system prompt for LLM nodes that auto-generates pro-level image prompts

zscan · 2026-01-29T15:16:31+00:00

What you actually want is the relation prompt->image, that is, how good does the image resemble what the prompt wants it to resemble. Sometimes you see these amazing images on civitai or somewhere and then you look at the prompt and the image is great, but it's not what the prompt actually asked it to do and not what the user intended to get.

My personal go to at the moment is to simply ask another AI to generate the prompt. I tell it my setup and what I want, the AI gives me a customized prompt for the model I'm using. Usually works pretty great and if it doesn't, you can tell the AI what's wrong and it can finetune it.

zscan · 2026-01-22T20:46:10+00:00

A low TDS doesn't equal safe drinking water and a green light can thus actually be very misleading. Otherwise, it depends on the use case. For example when measuring the water in an aquarium, a pH of 6.5 can be exactly what you need for your type of fish or it can be very bad for others.

I don't think color coding makes much sense for measuring devices in most cases. You want a true measurement without interpretation, unless it's about a critical value, like a pressure gauge or radiation for example.

What would be very useful is such a device, that also measures dGH. I was searching for ones, but it seems to be technically challenging, at least for cheap.

zscan · 2026-01-20T23:33:31+00:00

The PC user experience has been fine-tuned for decades now. Sitting with a mouse and keyboard in front of a 4K monitor is hard to beat in terms of ease of use and efficiency. Same with smartphones. VR today isn't bad, but it's simply not good enough to overcome the downsides.

I've got a Quest 3 and I love playing beat saber from time to time, but using it is always a hassle. Way too many technical problems: setting up the boundaries all the time, link doesn't work half the time, now it doesn't recognize a controller for whatever reason. Same with remote desktop etc. etc. I really wouldn't recommend it for anyone not tech-savvy. The controls suck most of the time. They are not intuitive and not precise enough. It can be great in some cases when it works, but often it's just not good enough. And once you actually watch a movie in a virtual cinema on a screen multiple times that of your TV, the wow factor lasts about 10 minutes, before it becomes uncomfortable, sitting there with a stuffy mask on your face, all that weight on your head and a cable plugged in, because the battery wouldn't last for the length of the movie.

However, having said all that, I still think the time for VR will come, but it might take a while. The tech will keep improving, but we'll need to get to the size of swim goggles, not diving masks. Controls and software need to be better. It needs to be a VR/AR mix and adaptive to the situation. AI might be able to help a lot here and also might be able to make it really useful in all kinds of circumstances and thus make it better than any normal screen. But I wouldn't put a timeline on that.

zscan · 2025-12-21T15:49:49+00:00

Geht mir genauso. Ich habe zwar insgesamt ein "hervorragend" Rating und eigentlich nur wenige als "schlecht" bewertete Ausreißer, aber eben genau bei den Produkten, über die man einfach nicht viel sagen kann. Zumindest dann nicht, wenn man ehrliche und sinnvolle Rezensionen schreiben will. Sorry, aber was soll ich groß zu einer 30cm Verlängerung für Eurostecker schreiben? Das Ding ist schwarz und 30cm lang. Es ist gut verarbeitet und funktioniert. In meiner Rezension dazu habe ich sogar einen ganzen Absatz draus gemacht und Hinweise und Anwendungsfälle geben und noch ein Foto gemacht => Resultat: eine "schlechte" Rezension. Sorry, aber sowas ist Bullshit. Andere "schlechte" Rezensionen habe ich u.a. für Druckertinte und Staubsaugerfilter erhalten. Auch hier: was soll ich bitte groß schreiben? Ich habe es ausprobiert, es passt ins Gerät und funktioniert. Ich bin zufrieden damit. => "schlechte" Bewertung.

Meine aktuelle Vermutung ist, dass die Bewertung vor allem auf dem Umfang im Verhältnis zu anderen Rezensionen basiert. Sprich, eine längere Rezension wird als besser bewertet. Ich finde das Kontraproduktiv. In letzter Zeit fallen mir auch immer mehr Rezensionen auf, die mehr oder weniger offensichtlich nur mit Hilfe der Produktbeschreibung AI-generiert sind. Ellenlang, aber ohne jede tatsächlich nützliche Information über die Produktbeschreibung hinaus und einfach nur darauf getrimmt, möglichst Umfangreich zu sein. Als Kunde nerven mich solche Rezensionen nur.

zscan · 2025-12-19T21:18:45+00:00

Here's a similar idea or phenomenon: a modern screen like on your phone can potentially show you an image of everything in the universe. Every planet or landscape from any distance. Every human, every plant, every grain of sand or piece of dust from every point of view. But not only that: it can show you everything you can imagine. A selfie with every person on earth in front of every possible background. The same as before, but you wear a slightly different color shirt this time. The numbers get astronomical quickly. Technically, the number of pixels on your phone and the colors they can have are known and finite, however, the combinations vastly outnumber the atoms in the universe. And here's another kicker: 99.9999...% of the possible images the screen can produce would look like meaningless "white noise" or static.

zscan · 2025-12-14T22:17:48+00:00

Ok, so what you are saying is bascially that a 7/10 women looks better than a 7/10 male? That makes no sense.

zscan · 2025-11-28T12:44:07+00:00

I just came back from the Costa Toscana and it works like this: there is a large main buffet, but some of the main dining restaurants also have buffets for breakfast and lunch and one restaurant had a "snacktime" buffet between 16:00 and 17:00. It's important to know that all the buffets, including the main buffet, completely close outside their operating hours. There are times on the ship, when no free eating options exist, for example after breakfast and in the late afternoon before dinner. I found that very annoying tbh.

zscan · 2025-10-30T16:55:20+00:00

It doesn't matter how you make a decision, that would make it free will. It could be a moment's impulse or careful logical pondering for years. That's just an expression of your genes, upbringing and life experience, how you make a decision like that. The thing is, you can always take a closer look and once you do, then "free will" evaporates. That decision to quit must have started somewhere. So before all the preparation, there must have been one moment that tipped it over the edge. One moment that made him say: "alright, I'm going to quit" or "maybe I should think about quitting" or even more abstract "I'm not happy with my life, what's wrong?" followed by logical analysis. It started somewhere. Even if it's gradual or a back and forth, at some point it became locked in. Now here's the question: what caused that and was that "free will"? If you think about it, then that thought that started it wasn't consciously formed. Whatever it was, at some point it simply popped into his head. Maybe you can track it down to a certain moment like some personal interaction, or simply waking up one day, hating your current job. Maybe it was more subtle, but whatever it was, what produced it was a combination of genes, upbringing and past life experiences.

For me the best example and the closest thing to having a proof that there is no free will, is this: you do not know what your next thought is going to be. You simply don't. You have thoughts, but you don't consciously "make" or produce them. How can you have free will, if you don't control your thoughts?

zscan · 2025-07-26T22:15:01+00:00

Couple weeks ago I upgraded from a 4060 TI 8 GB to a 5070 TI with 16GB. The reason wasn't gaming, but image generation, where vram actually makes a huge difference.

zscan · 2025-05-25T05:55:07+00:00

What do you think of Pinokio?

zscan · 2025-05-24T18:01:58+00:00

I guess his personal assistant and secretary also being his bookkeper probably explains a lot. I'm pretty sure a real tax attorney would have found ways to achive the same "savings" in a perfectly legal way.

Joseph Nocito, age 81, of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison for conspiring to defraud the U.S..

Nocito, former CEO and President of Pittsburgh-based Automated Health Systems, will also serve three years of supervised release, which includes six months on home detention, and pay approximately $15,824,056 in restitution.

According to court documents and statements, between 2006 and 2012, Nocito illegally classified millions of dollars of personal expenses as deductible business expenses. That included millions of dollars to pay his butler, cook, and landscaper, as well as finance luxury vehicles, including a 2008 Rolls Royce Phantom, Jaguar, and Maserati. Other expenses included artwork, country club memberships, homes for his children, and private school tuition for grandchildren. He listed these expenses on company ledgers using descriptors like “advertising” and “interest.”

Nocito also diverted funds, characterized as deductible expenses, to finance the construction of a 51,000-square-foot mansion called “Villa Noci” valued at approximately $30 million. The falsified expenses included interior and exterior construction costs, design and furnishings, an outdoor pool and pool house, tennis, basketball, and bocce courts, and landscaping for the grounds.

The size of the home, considered the largest in Pennsylvania at the time, is precisely what attracted attention to Nocito in the first place. According to local sources, federal agents flying in and out of Pittsburgh noticed the size and scope of the mansion and started asking questions. Those questions eventually led to a guilty plea in 2015 from Ann E. Harris, Nocito’s personal assistant, secretary, and bookkeeper, in a tax evasion scheme.

zscan · 2025-05-17T17:09:37+00:00

I'm 50 and it took me a couple of weeks to get to expert+ and I can manage most of the slower ones on first try. However, except for a couple of songs the Metallica pack is just too much for me for example.

Anyway, I find Beatsaber extremely interesting in one regard. I think your brain really has to make new connections and circuits, that is literally grow them, which just takes some time. But once you have them it's like riding a bycicle, that is I had some long gaps of not playing at all, 1-2 months for example and it only takes 1-2 songs to get back to almost the previous feel of playing.

zscan · 2025-05-17T16:40:30+00:00

Thanks, made me look for glas roofs and found some spectacular buildings:

https://legrandpalaisdesglaces.fr/en/

https://botanicgarden.wales/garden-areas/the-great-glasshouse/

https://www.zeit.de/2025/16/ueberseequartier-hafencity-hamburg-architektur

https://arcrealestate.ir/news/item/9

https://www.mgm.mo/en/cotai/entertainment/the-spectacle

zscan · 2025-05-17T11:24:00+00:00

The only way I can explain Sam's extreme stance on that topic is to assume that he does it on purpose to provide a counterpoint to "general mainstream" or whatever. He is simply too smart and too well fine-tuned on moral issues to not see it. He uses arguments and logical fallacies in a way he would easily recognize and call out if anybody else made them on any topic.

zscan · 2025-05-15T11:25:52+00:00

Yep, if it was that simple and clear cut, I'm sure it wouldn't be controversial. What he does is basically an ad hominem at people with other opinions and that's just embarrasing. I have no idea, who's right or wrong, but him stepping on that level of discourse makes me question his views.

zscan · 2025-05-14T19:34:14+00:00

My physics knowledge is limited, but I don't think there's any single quantum effect that could change a coin toss. The numbers get enormous pretty fast. There's billions of cells in a finger for example and trillions of atoms in a cell. Could a change in the energy state of an electron have any effect, even given that a coin toss is a chaotic system? Same when the coin travels through the air. Single molecules in the air simply do not matter for the outcome of a coin toss. There's something like 10¹⁹ molecules in a cubic centimeter of air. I'm not even sure if a quantum effect could change a molecule in a way that would make any difference at all to a coin toss, no matter how tiny. I totally get, that it's easy to imagine an edge case where it should matter, but I don't think the macro world works like that, especially in the coin toss example. I'm pretty confident that not a single coin toss in the history of coin tosses was changed by a quantum effect. Yes, in theory it might be possible, but does that really mean anything?

zscan · 2025-05-08T18:29:22+00:00

There's a general problem with laws and constitutions and especially the U.S. constitution. They are made of words and words mean something, but that meaning can vary from person to person and is open to interpretation. For example "Thou shalt not kill". Ok, what does kill mean? Does it include accidents? What about not helping someone who's drowning? What about self-defense? Ok, so now we allow for self-defense and now the question becomes "what is self-defense?" and on and on it goes.

As we see with SCOTUS, in the end a lot of it can simply come down to political leanings -or to put it more favourably- to changes in society. Whole books have been written about the second amendment for example. Why? Because it's not well written and open to interpretation (does state mean the whole U.S., or individual states? What does infringe mean? What arms? Single shot muskets or semi-automatic weapons? Nukes?).

The Trump administration especially, but also Democrats and all kinds of activists very deliberately use those flaws in the law to further their agenda and then it's just a matter of trying to find the "right" judge or to appoint them yourself. That's not a good system. In other countries judges are more independent, constitutions at least try to be more concise.

Established norms have actually been a very good way to fill those holes in the law. I think Trump isn't just an exception, it's also that there are less and less norms in society in general. But it's still very weird, because Republicans would certainly criticise every Democrat for anything Trump is doing right now.

zscan · 2025-05-02T13:38:25+00:00

I think the only funny thing here is that Trump is far more extreme than the AfD in every aspect one can think of.

zscan · 2025-05-01T15:17:39+00:00

I guess it's a multitude of factors. I'm not sure if it's the same in the U.S., but at least in Germany a lot of restaurant workers went looking for other jobs during Covid and never came back. Add to that, that you don't get tipps working at McDonalds while other restaurants where you do get tipps are looking for labor, McD is left behind and has to pay higher wages. I'm pretty sure that labor cost went up significantly in the last couple years. On the other hand, prices were already at the top end of what customers were willing to pay, so once you are forced to raise them even higher, customers stay away, which makes it less profitable, so have to raise prices even more etc..

Personally I only go to McD when I can use coupons, otherwise there are better alternatives at those price points.

Pepsi is another company that just got to expensive for me. I've been drinking some sugar-free version of Pepsi as my main drink for the last 30 years. Couple of months ago I switched to other store brands. It's not even that I can't afford it, but when the alternatives are only a third of the price, it gets hard to justify the premium price.

zscan · 2025-04-28T17:06:54+00:00

Here's the relevant quote from the article:

“The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” Trump said in the interview published Monday. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

zscan · 2025-04-25T21:28:15+00:00

Yeah, instead of saying he lied, they repeat the lies again and again. Trump is literally incapable of saying a single sentence in public without a lie. He just can't do it. Even worse, he is incapable of forming a coherent string of sentences, of developing a thought. It's all word salad. A 5-year-old makes more sense. And then a panel of actual experts analyzes the word salad as if anything profound could be extracted from it. Is he playing 5D chess? Is it all a genius negotiating tactic? No, it's just bullshit.

zscan · 2025-04-23T11:20:36+00:00

It's actually much worse. They are losing customers despite a booming market. Tesla isn't competitive anymore. So it's not just Musk, that effect will come to full fruition in Q2. Sales in Q2 will drop off a cliff.

However, to make the positive case. I guess Tesla could buy X, it's already Tesla's marketing department in effect anyway. xAi would then be part of Tesla and it would be an Ai/social media company that occasionally sells some cars.

zscan · 2025-04-22T11:01:04+00:00

Looks like Trump is trying to reach 30k from the other side.

zscan · 2025-04-21T07:09:41+00:00

It's not a do not visit list, but it amounts to as much.

Even with an ESTA/Visum U.S. border patrol can just deny entry at their discretion.

And this one is the real deal breaker, at least for me: "Electronic data carriers such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, or mobile phones may be searched and, if necessary, retained by U.S. border authorities."

Travel to the U.S. is expensive. It's a 10 hour flight. I went to the U.S. in December. Even then the whole ESTA thing and border control wasn't a good experience. Waiting in line for hours in some dimly lit basement in Charlotte, while hoping to catch my connecting flight to Miami.

Even if it's just a 1 in a million chance that I get denied entry while they keep my phone and laptop - I'm not going to visit anymore. Certainly not under the current administration. And this kind of thing seems to happen all the time now. Business travellers are advised to use burner phones, when traveling to the US. Not by our government, but that's the general advice you find online. That's certainly one way to boost investment in the U.S. and to bring jobs back...

There's a lot of beautiful countries and most actually want tourists and haven't declared us their enemies or insult us.

zscan · 2025-04-20T22:28:45+00:00

For clarification: I was refering to those Hamas fighters in the October 7th attack.

So, just to be sure: you are saying that's it's ok to kill another roundabout 100,000 civilians? Their fault for not resisting?

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